The Husband Who Sued for Peace
A local man seeks divorce, claiming his wife's constant 'jawing' and refusal to mend his clothes made his life unendurable.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Thomas H. Davis brought action in the superior court yesterday to secure a divorce from his wife, Josephine Davis. If his story is true, he certainly is a thoroughly henpecked husband. He says that he was married at Bucoda on December 19, 1870, and that he and his wife lived together for five or six years, but since then their relations have been strained and they have not been able to agree. For the past seven or eight years, he claims to have been a loving husband, but that his wife would get mad at him and scold and taunt him so as to render his life unendurable. He complains that her disposition is such that she 'scarcely ever spoke a kind and pleasant word to him, but was continually jawing and battering him.' For the last two or three years, he says, she has practically abandoned him, refusing to be in his company much of the time. Another of her domestic sins, he says, was that she 'refused to do any mending whatsoever to plaintiff's clothing.' As if this were not enough, the complaint continues that on April 7, 1893, she left him, declaring that she would never thereafter live with him. On this showing he asks for his divorce and to be allowed to retain his property.
“She scarcely ever spoke a kind and pleasant word to him, but was continually jawing and battering him.”
Divorce filings in the late 19th century were public spectacles that often hinged on rigid, gendered expectations of domestic labor. While the language of 'henpecked' husbands has faded, the modern court system continues to mediate the intersection of personal grievance and property division.
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